


angus mcdonald and the seven birds

by terra_incognita



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Background Killian/Carey, Background Lup/Barry, Bullying, Everyone Adopts Angus, Found Family, Gen, General tomfoolery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-06 17:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11605503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terra_incognita/pseuds/terra_incognita
Summary: Angus isn't sure why he picked Hogwarts out of all the offers he's received from other magical schools, but for better or worse, he did. And now he'll need to navigate ruffboi Quidditch captains, troublemaking twins, and foulmouthed herbology professors if he wants to have any chance of making it through his first year.





	1. Upon the Stair

**Author's Note:**

> This was an accident and I don't have an excuse.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday upon the stair  
> I saw a man who wasn't there

Hogwarts, Angus thinks as he waits patiently for the staircase he's standing on to swivel all the way back around, isn't as big as Ilvermorny or Uagadou. The architecture, he supposes, is quite a bit nicer than the American school and certainly more structured than the sprawling campuses in Africa. But it's nowhere near as elegant as Mahoutokoro, with its long clean lines and the smell and sound of singing lilies wafting through the airy rooms.

And they all wanted him. There was interest from Castelobruxo and Durmstrang too, and a passing curiosity from Koldovstoretz, but he turned those down out of hand. Durmstrang and Koldovstoretz came out of the war with pretty tarnished reputations, and while Castelobruxo is a fine school he's pretty sure the humidity of the Amazon would kill him before he made it through the front gates.

Which is a shame. They're made of living vines, a genuine triumph of herbology and architecture, and he desperately wants to see them. Oh well.

The point is, every magical school seems to want to boast Angus McDonald as a student. And he understands, really. He's smart enough to know how smart he is. Angus is a genius, a genuine prodigy. He was published at eight and cast his first fully-formed patronus at ten. And all with the kind of affable sweetness that adults seem to love.

He lets out a slow breath between his teeth when he hears footsteps on the stairs behind him. He wishes, sometimes, that getting along with other kids was as easy as getting along with teachers.

"Hey four-eyes."

Ah. Gryffindors. Gryffindors have a very specific brand of bullying, and he can usually recognize it within the first few seconds. If they were Slytherins, they would have been engaged in a conversation about him when they arrived and "not noticed" he was there until he coughed. Ravenclaws would have opened with underhanded compliments. And Hufflepuffs… Well, Hufflepuffs usually just ignore him.

Angus turns, and is greeted by a pair of second-years with matching smirks and Gryffindor ties. He recognizes them from Charms. He tries a winning smile, but it is not returned. He remembers longingly that quite a few schools would still be willing to take him, even now that the year's started.

"Hi! Are you on your way to Arithmancy too?"

Smirks turn to glowers, and Angus remembers belatedly that Arithmancy is usually reserved for older students. He winces. "I didn't--"

"You think you're so--"

"Avery!" Someone shouts, all gruff reproach. "Crivvet! You should've been on the pitch twenty minutes ago to warm up, you're first reserve! If you're not on your brooms when I get there…"

The boy is a sixth-year, Angus notes. He's wearing a Gryffindor scarf slung carelessly around his shoulders, and under it his tie is undone. He scowls at the two boys, not bothering to finish his threat as they scurry down the stairs and disappear along a vacant corridor.

Angus blinks. The sixth-year glances up at him, and there's an odd scar crossing his nose. It goes all scrunchy when he grins. "Hey." He trudges up the stairs to lean against the railing as they swing around again. "Hope you don't mind some company. I'm just running up to grab something from Professor Killian's office."

Angus opens his mouth, tries to think of an answer that doesn't make him sound like a complete loser.

"We're not supposed to call the teachers by their first names."

Oh. Well, that isn't it.

To his surprise, the boy doesn't scowl or roll his eyes. He throws his head back and lets out a bark of laughter, then grins lopsidedly down at Angus.

"Sassing a sixth-year. That's pretty ballsy, kid." He sticks out his hand. "I'm Magnus."

Angus brightens. "I'm Angus! Angus McDonald." He reaches for Magnus' hand, only to stumble a little when it's snatched away. Angus looks up, and sees Magnus wiggling his fingers at him.

"Too slow," Magnus teases, and just as Angus' heart starts to sink--another rug pulled out from under him--he reaches down to ruffle his hair. "See ya around, Ango."

He steps off the stairs and waves jauntily over his shoulder. Angus stands there frozen until the staircase moves again, and it takes him a while after that to realize he missed his floor.

* * *

When Angus gets back to his room after a long day of dodging bullies and missing staircases, he's confronted by the pile of letters on his desk. He sighs, but sits down and pulls one out at random. Skims it. Blows a lock of hair out of his eyes.

Pulling out a piece of scrap parchment, he begins his reply:

 _While I am honored by your letter,_ he writes, _I regret to inform you that I must once again decline your invitation to attend Ilvermorny..._

 


	2. Counting Magpies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One for sorrow  
> Two for joy  
> Three for a girl  
> Four for a boy  
> Five for silver  
> Six for gold  
> Seven for a secret  
> Never to be told

Meeting the twins is a much more… explosive experience.

Angus is on his way to the library, book bag tucked tidily under one arm as he walks with a bit of a skip in his step. He's just come from a particularly exciting round of wizard chess (against himself, no one else will play with him) and he's feeling pretty good about how today is shaping up.

That changes very abruptly when the walls tremble with a low, dangerous roar.

Angus nearly drops his books as two singed figures come careening around the corner. One of them is holding his hat down over his ears as he runs, feet eating up the stones in long strides. The other is glancing over her shoulder and grinning as though she's winning at her favorite game.

"Don't stand around staring, kid!" the boy shouts, snatching Angus' wrist on his way past. "Get those feet a'flyin'!"

Angus' arm is nearly yanked out of its socket as he's dragged backward down the hall, risking one last glance over his shoulder before he finally stumbles into an awkward run. What he sees is Professor Fangbattle, eyes ablaze, claws striking sparks against the stones as she gives chase on all fours.

"What did you do?!" he wails, never having seen the care of magical creatures professor in quite such a state of upset.

"Not important," the girl answers gleefully. "But it will be if she catches us. Down here!" She grabs both of them and dives into an alcove, shoving them into a tunnel behind a tapestry and throwing herself in after them.

They lie there in tense silence as the sound of reptilian breathing and clicking claws slinks slowly past their hiding space. Angus thinks he might faint.

When the sound of Professor Fangbattle's pursuit finally fades into the distance, he heaves a sigh of relief. "Lumos," he murmurs, holding up his wand to see just who has dragged him into this peculiar situation.

He almost drops his wand when he recognizes them.

The girl snorts. "Easy kid, you'll put your eye out."

"You-- You--"

"You're doin' terrific," the boy drawls, propping his boot up against the opposite wall of the corridor to fiddle with his laces.

"You're the Taaco twins!"

The girl--Lup, he realizes now--grins at him. "The one and only. Well, the two and only."

Taako brushes some of the soot from his Slytherin robes. Then, for good measure, he reaches over and does the same for Lup. "Heard of us, huh? We do run a little infamous around here, can't lie." He looks smug.

"Actually," Angus babbles, following the two of them out past the tapestry and into the now-empty corridor, "I read about you in Modern Magic. That study they did on the development of magical twins--and Taako, your contributions to that paper on transfiguration were amazing! Lup, I read your study on conflagration in destructive spells and--"

Two hands cover his mouth at once, one from each side. He lets out a muffled yelp, blinking up at them in obvious confusion. Taako is glaring at him outright, while Lup has the decency to look embarrassed. She lets her hand fall first, nudging Taako with her foot to make him follow suit.

"Look. Kid," she starts, but Taako interrupts.

"You can't go runnin' your mouth about that shit where people can hear you, yeah? We've got a reputation to maintain."

"Yeah," Lup agrees, nodding sagely. "We can't just go around telling people we're nerds."

It takes Angus less than a second to figure out what they mean, but he still feels a little off-balance. "So it's… a secret?"

"Exactly," Taako says, poking him in the shoulder. "Top secret. You know how to keep secrets, right kid?"

They're both looking at him with thinly-disguised worry, and he finds his head nodding before his brain can catch up with it. "Yeah. I can keep a secret."

He sees them relax slightly, but he has the good sense not to mention it.

"Solid." Lup tilts her head to one side, assessing Angus with new eyes. "Say, what's your name crackerjack?"

"It's Angus."

Taako pats him on the shoulder. "Agnes. Right." He straightens up, and grins crookedly. "Well Agnes, if you don't tell anyone we're secret dorks, we won't tell anyone you cast that dragonsbane jinx on Professor Killian."

Angus' frowns in confusion. "What? But-- But Professor Fangbattle was the one chasing--" He stops in his tracks, jaw dropping. "Wait. I didn't do that!"

But Taako and Lup are already mincing away, arm-in-arm, wiggling their fingers at him in identical jaunty waves. "See you around, shrimp!"

Angus stares after them, mouth hanging open, until a third-year bumps into him and his brain re-starts.


	3. Vintery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn  
> Apple seed and apple thorn...

If Angus had to pick his greatest failing, it would probably be herbology.

"McDonald, I already told you twice." Professor Highchurch is passing behind him, shaking his head exasperatedly. "Keep your damn elbow up. I don't want to get stuck explaining why one of my students is missing half his ulna. That snapping gripke is hungry, and you're supposed to be feeding it with the tweezers--not your own forearm." He lifts his own, wooden one above the workbench and wags it in Angus' face. "Wanna end up like me?"

"No professor," Angus says, lifting his elbow as high as he can and trying to entice the gripke with the dead mouse currently dangling from the end of his tweezers. "But it won't take the mouse."

Professor Highchurch frowns at him, then down at the gripke. "Well keep trying." He whips his head around, distracted by another student across the room. "Cavenaugh, it's not a damn baby! Stop making airplane noises!"

Angus keeps trying. And trying. And trying. But no matter how he wiggles the mouse or makes subtle squeaking noises or very quietly begs, the gripke isn't taking the bait. When class lets out he sets down the tweezers with a heavy sigh.

"Sorry professor," he says, shoving a hand into his mess of curls as he sits back. "I just don't think I'm cut out for herbology."

Professor Highchurch ducks to avoid Nancy Creekruffle's schoolbag, "Watch it, kid," before making his way over to Angus. He peers down at the sullen-looking plant. "Yeah," he agrees, "Doesn't look like you have much of a green thumb."

Angus nods, pushing his chair back and reaching for his bag. "Sorry," he says again, but when he sits up Professor Highchurch is still staring at the plant. "Is… something wrong, professor?"

"They'll eat for anybody, usually," Highchurch mumbles, brushing a wooden thumb over one of the leaves. Then, as though something has just occurred to him, he flips the leaf over. The gripke snaps at him halfheartedly, but suddenly he's grinning. "Ha! Looks like this one's on me, kid."

"What is it?" Angus peers at the plant, not daring to get too close but still devastatingly curious. What he sees is a row of bright red spots, no bigger than pinpricks, lining the vein of the leaf. "What are those?"

"They're nymph pox," Highchurch explains, shaking his head with a low chuckle. "She's a little under the weather, that's all." He pats the pot lovingly, ignoring the way the gripke nips at him. "Still, I better get her isolated. Don't want it spreading."

Angus watches as Professor Highchurch picks up the snapping gripke and moves toward a door at the back of the greenhouse. He shifts from foot to foot for a moment, then asks, "Will it-- Um. Will she be all right?"

Professor Highchurch pauses, glancing over his shoulder. His perplexed expression turns into an amused smirk, and he nods. "Yeah, kid. She'll be fine. A little rest someplace cool and she'll be good as new." He turns away, starting again toward the back door. "Now get gone, I don't wanna hear from Professor Killian how you were late for flying lessons. Woman's got a bite worse'n one of these gripkes."

Angus takes off at a jog. But he visits the next day to ask after the snapping gripke, and under a heavy layer of annoyance he thinks Professor Highchurch might be glad to see him.


	4. Two Little Blackbirds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two little blackbirds  
> Sitting on a wall  
> One named Peter  
> One named Paul  
> 

Angus knows Barry Bluejeans. Or, more accurately, he knows of Barry Bluejeans. When he'd first set foot in the Ravenclaw common room earlier that year, the Head Boy had given them a cursory tour of the space.

"There's the fireplace," he'd said with a bored gesture. "The stairs to the dormitories. And there's Barry. As always."

He'd pointed to the corner farthest from the fire, where an overstuffed chair had been dragged up to the edge of a table covered inches deep with parchment and books. The shape hunched over it, almost completely obscured by a large stack of volumes, hadn't looked up.

"I don't know," one of the third-years snaps when he asks her. "He's always there, unless he's in class. I think he sleeps in the common room. Why are you talking to me?"

Sloane, the captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, is a little more informative. "He's in my year," she explains, watching a halfling girl in Hufflepuff robes wander across the courtyard with a handful of friends. "Kind of a loner. Smart, though. HEY HURLEY!"

This last is shouted at a deafening volume, and the halfling girl comes to a startled halt.

"WE'RE GONNA DRAG YOUR ASS ALL OVER THE PITCH ON FRIDAY!"

For a moment Angus wonders if the girl will cry. Angus knows he would, if someone shouted at him like that. But she just plants her hands on her hips and shouts back, "YOU'LL HAVE TO CATCH ME FIRST, SLOANE!"

This devolves into a series of very creative insults with a strong undercurrent of sexual tension, and Angus takes it as his cue to disappear before he hears something above his maturity level.

* * *

 

Ultimately, he decides that the best approach is a direct one.

"Hi!"

Barry doesn't look up, making a brief note at the bottom of a sheet of parchment covered in similar scribbles.

"…Hello?"

Still no answer.

"Um. Mister Bluejeans?"

The pen stills, and then Barry is blinking at him over a pair of glasses that look prepared to slip right off the end of his nose.

Angus smiles winningly. Barry clears his throat. "Oh. Uh, sorry. People don't usually… I mean, what can I do for you?"

Angus leans over to peer more closely at the papers scattered across the table. "It's just that I've been awfully curious. I see you in the common room every day, and you're clearly working very hard on something. Do you mind if I ask what it is?"

Barry stares at him as though he's grown a second head. Angus turns his smile up a few notches.

"Well, I mean… I mean it's not really that interesting. Not to anyone else, anyway. It's just, it's some theoretical stuff."

Angus brightens. "I love theory! Practical application only gets you so far, you know? I wish they'd teach us more about why spells work the way they do, I think that's much more interesting than wand movements and pronunciation. Though that's important too, obviously."

As he speaks, Angus watches the apprehension in Barry's expression melt into tentative hope, and then a cautious smile.

"Well," he says, "If you look here--" he pulls out what looks like an old grimoire. "--you'll see that the arrangements of most spells were discovered purely by accident. A lot of the wand movements are extraneous really, they're just whatever happened to work. But I'm trying to break down the casting of spells to its purely necessary elements. Really, I think the wizarding world relies too heavily on tradition and not enough on research and development."

Angus nods, pulling up a chair and tugging the grimoire into his lap to peer at the page Barry has indicated. "Right! Just because we've done something one way for a really long time, doesn't mean it's the best way. Wandless and wordless magic are both proof of that. There have to be more efficient ways to channel spells.

Barry grabs a sheaf of notes, tapping a specific section. "Exactly. Here, I've broken down a list of spells syllable number and movement complexity…"

By the time Angus is yawning more than he's speaking, it's well past midnight and they're both nodding into their books. Barry chuckles when Angus' forehead lands on the pages again, and suggests they call it a night.

"What about you?" Angus asks when Barry doesn't get up, remembering what the third-year said about sleeping in the common room. "Aren't you going to bed?"

"Oh, I'll probably stay up a little longer." Barry stretches, and his spine performs a little symphony of cracking noises. "I don't like to go up until I know for sure everyone else is asleep."

Angus glances toward the sixth-year dormitory. Sure enough, the telltale glow of candlelight is still flickering under the door. He thinks, as he bids Barry a quiet goodnight, that the two of them have a lot in common.


	5. Shall I Be So

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then she unto the parson said  
> Shall I be so when I am dead?  
> O yes! O yes, the parson said  
> You will be so when you are dead

Lucretia is known to all the students at Hogwarts, but known by none of them.

When Angus first sees her--a grey specter drifting through the halls with a distant expression on her translucent face--he doesn't think to ask who she is. There are plenty of ghosts roving the grounds of Hogwarts castle, what's one more?

It isn't until later, when a bit of light reading leads him to a manifest of Hogwarts' many spooks, that he realizes how little is known about her. Just her first name, and an estimated era of death.

It's a mystery. And Angus McDonald loves mysteries.

The book hazards that she must have died soon after the founding of the school, based on the style of her robes. It makes sense, and it also makes her one of the oldest ghosts to haunt Hogwarts--second only to the Grey Lady. Angus takes notes, makes observations, watches the way she moves and the schedule she keeps. She attends functions and feasts, much like the others, but doesn't socialize with them. She wanders habitually between classrooms in the oldest wings of the castle, but spends the majority of her time in the library.

Angus asks Madame Pince--an undertaking that requires a great deal of bravery--what she knows about the reclusive spirit. The elderly librarian squints down her nose at him as though he's a speck of dust on the cover of a very rare and delicate book.

"Why," she asks acidly, "Would a boy your age be interested in something so tedious?"

Angus rocks up onto the balls of his feet nervously. "Um. Knowledge for its own sake?"

Pince sniffs. "Is that so." She turns away from him, returning her attention to the massive volume she'd been re-binding before he arrived. "In that case, I suggest you mind your own business. And let her do the same."

Deflated, Angus begins the long walk back to the Ravenclaw common room. Maybe Madame Pince is right. Maybe this is a mystery he isn't meant to--

Angus freezes. There, just twenty feet away, is Lucretia herself. She's holding a book under her arm--a spectral book, he notes, the one she always keeps in the deep pockets of her robes--and she's reading it as she walks.

She looks different today, almost absent-minded as she drifts down a hallway to the right. Angus barely hesitates for a moment before following her.

Lucretia wanders to the end of the corridor. Turns right. Continues down the hall until it dead-ends, then drifts through a wall and disappears.

Angus comes to a disappointed halt at the end of the hall, frowning at the stones. He reaches out and runs his thumb over the mortar.

Hm.

Wheels turning in his head, he peers at the stones on the wall to his right. They're large, almost a foot across. But the ones barring the dead end are much smaller, barely five inches wide apiece. And they look… Well, not new. But newer, somehow.

Angus has known how to apparate for six months already, though it's strictly forbidden at his age. And anyway, it wouldn't work on Hogwarts' grounds. He puzzles over the wall for a long moment, then snaps his fingers.

Right. Lup's paper. Can't go through it, can't go over it, can't go around it… so blast it.

"Confringo." Angus flicks his wand, and a moment later the wall is little more than unrecognizable rubble. And Angus is a little sooty, but who's counting.

When he sees what's beyond the wall, he thinks for a moment that his spell may have taken things too far. The interior of the massive room is charred black, the floor covered with heaps of ash that must have once been furniture. The fluttering, charcoal-edged remains of banners hang from the wall.

And standing in the center of the room, staring at Angus in unabashed shock, is Lucretia herself.

"What," she gasps, "Why-- What are you doing here?"

Angus realizes with a guilty twinge that he must have startled her very badly. "Sorry," he blurts, then flushes darkly. "It's just. You passed through the wall, and I probably should have minded my own business but… I wanted to know where you went."

Lucretia just stares at him, mouth open in confused astonishment. "…Why?"

"Because… I was curious about you."

Still looking stunned, Lucretia sits down. She seems to do it without thinking, falling back into a chair that isn't there. She blinks slowly.

"Do you…" Angus swallows, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Can… you tell me what this place is?"

Lucretia finally closes her mouth, casting her eyes around the room slowly. "I… didn't mean to come here." Her voice is so quiet he can barely hear it. She seems to collect herself a little. "It's the library," she explains. "Or it used to be."

Angus takes in the damage. The black stones, the wispy remains of the banners. "What happened?"

Lucretia sighs. "An experiment with Fiendfyre. Or, Fiendfyre is what you call it now."

"But… why wasn't it repaired?"

"Two reasons." Lucretia looks uncomfortable now. "I suspect the early variant was much more difficult to control, and the enchantment may have made the destruction very difficult to reverse."

Angus watches her. Watches the way her eyes slide away from him. "And… the other reason?"

Lucretia's fingers splay across her spectral book. "Well. The librarian died in the fire."

Angus gets a thick feeling in his throat, but he swallows it down. "…You?"

She nods.

Angus doesn't often feel bad for spying on people, but now he feels absolutely miserable. "I'm sorry," he babbles, "I shouldn't have followed you. It was dumb and nosy and--"

Lucretia holds up a hand to wave his apology away. And she isn't smiling, exactly, but her expression looks… lighter, somehow.

"It's all right," she says, her tone kind. "It's sort of… nice. No one's ever taken an interest, really. It's a pretty old story, I'm not sure you'd even find it in Hogwarts: A History."

"You wouldn't," Angus says. "I looked." Then he's flushing again, and she's laughing in a strange way that makes him wonder how long it's been since she laughed.

"You're a very clever boy," Lucretia tells him, and Angus beams.

He knows that, obviously. But it's always nice to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on Tumblr: [miss-terra-incognita](miss-terra-incognita.tumblr.com)


End file.
